They met every Sunday to have an aperitif. It was a group of Madrid residents in their twenties, some had known each other all their lives, and others, like Oliva Alonso, had joined later. They would gather several tables in a bar in San Bernardo, and stay there until the power went out. They spent all that time drinking: vermouth, a double, then a drink. One day, his friend Dani stopped going. At first he didn't give any explanations, but in the end he confessed that he was unable to keep up with that pace of drinking, he said that he was tired of starting every week with a hangover. “We realized that the same thing was happening to all of us,” recalls Alonso. “And now we try to make different plans that don't involve drinking.”
-As which?
–Like going to the Botanical Garden. I know it sounds a bit like Alcoholics Anonymous, but it's also a great plan.
More and more young people are reducing their alcohol consumption or even stopping drinking. According to a Statista study conducted in the United States, which included 10,000 citizens between 18 and 64 years old, Generation Z—those born between the late 1990s and early 2000s—is the most sober in history. Besides, an international study of HBSCsupported by the World Health Organization, indicates that only 8% of adolescents consume alcohol weekly, a significantly lower amount compared to their peers in 2006. This trend is reflected in the popularity of initiatives such as Dry January (Dry January), which emerged in the United Kingdom in 2013, and encourages participants to stop consuming alcohol during the first month of the year as a response to Christmas excesses.
Guillermo González, 25 years old, faced this challenge between May and June of last year. “The truth is that I didn't choose the best month,” he says, referring to the thirst that usually accompanies the arrival of good weather. I was coming from an intense travel season, with a lot of social plans, and a high alcohol intake. “I ended up in a mess,” he summarizes. He doesn't remember if anyone told him about the challenge, or read about it somewhere. “It probably showed up on Instagram,” he says. “I was very clear that I needed a breakso I decided to try it as a personal challenge.”
The first thing he noticed was a “clear improvement” in his physical performance. He suddenly felt less lazy about going to the gym and, in general, he felt less tired. His social plans remained exactly the same, what changed was his willingness to stay in them. “I must have gone out partying about three times and, obviously, I couldn't last that long. You see the rock completely blow jobyou hear music that you don't even want to listen to… in the end you leave sooner.”
A 2019 University of Sussex survey found that 59% of participants they drank less in the month of June (compared to the previous year's indices) than before starting the challenge in January. At the other extreme, 11% had experienced a rebound effect and were drinking more than before. This happened mainly among those who had not managed to complete the 31 days without alcohol. Dr. Jon Díez Alcántar points out that even a short period of abstinence can benefit health, improving aspects such as the quality of sleep, the reduction of psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression, improvement in skin quality and weight loss. However, an article in the magazine Nature suggests that this campaign is not recommended for chronic drinkers due to the risk of withdrawal syndrome and that short periods of abstinence do not prevent the long-term effects of excessive alcohol consumption.
Goodbye friends
Aitana Oliveros, 24, started partying very early. She had no trouble holding out until she closed the nightclub, nor staying morning on a polygon, listening to music on the speakers of a car. Two years ago she signed up for classes crossfit. At first I went a couple of times a week. She had long since lost the habit of exercising. She began to enjoy the training more and more. Without realizing it, he got used to setting his alarm for six in the morning to start the day in the box, doing squats and burpees. “The party started to make me more lazy. “I stopped tolerating feeling sick the next day, skipping training or choking because I had smoked two packs in one night,” she explains.
The change meant leaving behind certain groups of friends who were directly related to the party. “There are people I stopped talking to. Some friends were angry with me for not going to their birthdays and things like that, but honestly I preferred to be calm than to go to those plans that I already knew how they were going to end. Now, except on rare occasions, she has limited her social life during the week, which has led to a significant reduction in her alcohol consumption. “I know that if I meet someone I'm going to end up drinking eight beers, or that if I say I'm leaving soon, they're going to look at me badly, or they're going to say I'm boring.”
Spain is the second country in the European Union in terms of frequency of alcohol consumption, surpassed only by Portugal. 13% of Spaniards drink alcohol every day. Beer and wine act as an obligatory social lubricant at parties, brass bands, festivals, dinners or barbecues in all corners of the country. In some environments, the teetotaler becomes a kind of pest, continually required to explain why he does not drink. Sergio Paredes, 26, went six months without tasting a single drop of alcohol. “I would sit at the bar, he would order an Aquarius, and always the same little questions: 'Oh, but you don't drink?' or 'What's wrong, is it bad?' The same when going out to party. “I don't see anyone being asked why they ordered a beer,” he says.
His abstinence period extended from January to July 2023. “Of the seven days a week, I drank on five or six, not excessively, but I realized that I couldn't make any plans without alcohol,” he says. Like Aitana Oliveros, she found in physical exercise a way to reorganize his priorities. “I really like running and I was seeing that this was counterproductive, I was even starting to notice my belly from drinking so much alcohol. I asked myself: what's the point of getting up early and being cold if I then ruin it in the afternoon?”
His alcohol abstinence was interrupted shortly after moving to Chile for an exchange program, and he is again considering quitting or at least reducing his alcohol consumption. “For example, on Christmas Eve I started with a glass of water and during dinner I drank one or two glasses of wine.”
Slow drinking requires having a strong personality or nerves of steel, like Brad Pitt's character in the movie The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007), who took several hours to finish a mug of beer, after which he reported feeling completely drunk. The English journalist Rosamund Dean is credited with creating the term mindful drinking (conscious drinking). In 2017 she published a book, Mindful drinking: how moderating alcohol consumption will change your life, in which he explained his strategies to stop understanding alcohol consumption as a habit and a social obligation. This practice involves being aware of the effects of alcohol on oneself and seeking a healthier balance, rather than drinking out of habit or social pressure. The goal is to control and feel comfortable with alcohol consumption, opting for moderation instead of total abstinence.
An ascetic existence is not necessary. A cheerful moderation is compatible with enjoying the pleasures that the drink offers. Paula Mira, 25 years old, is in this philosophy. She gave up tobacco on January 1, but she did not give up alcohol. “Although she probably drinks less beer too; “Many times I drank to avoid having a dry drink.” For this young woman from Madrid, winters are made for hibernating and staying at home, and summers for spending the day outside. “We all go through streaks when it comes to drinking and partying, although I think that in my case there is a trend, I feel that another stage of life is coming, which in every way is asking me for the need for something new. And that change also goes hand in hand with that: not drinking all weekendsnot going out all the time.”
–Are we tired of the party?
–I don't know, maybe we get older.
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